A new approach has prevailed in ExCom debates regarding LISA's strategy for 1998. While keeping its non-profit structure, LISA should regard itself today as a "company" that measures success in terms of its capacity to provide services and products to satisfy its clients’ (i.e. LISA members’) needs and expectations.

For 1998, the expectations with respect to LISA deliverables are higher than ever before. The underlying reasons are well known: industry consolidation, technological innovation, and the need to localize more languages more quickly. I hope that the members who receive the greatest benefit from their membership are those companies which find in LISA today a way to solve the questions that others will be asking themselves tomorrow.

Feedback from recent forums suggests that LISA is indeed meeting industry demands, and OSCAR is tangible proof that LISA provides a needed platform for creating industry standards. However, some members, or potential ones, mistakenly view LISA's role more narrowly—as merely a conference organizer. Others, distressed by the complexity of our changing industry, seek a body to provide the comfort and safety of standards, while they fail to look at the industry's uncertainties as a source of competitive advantage and market opportunities. Meanwhile, many LISA products that can add great value for members go unused. For example, relatively few members have implemented LISA's Quality Assurance metrics, or reviewed their QA process with the help of this document.

LISA faces no easy task in defining its future role. It faces two internal challenges in moving towards the "company" vision mentioned above. Firstly, it must keep its independent, non-profit approach, yet implement a business-oriented approach. Only an independent association, comprised of committed members, can gather and provide all the elements needed for us all to make informed choices about our business.

Secondly, it has to be democratic and elitist at the same time. Democratic, since all members should benefit from LISA's activities alike: small and large companies, new entrants and long-established companies. Elitist, because it requires top executives to provide proactive initiatives and involvement, as well as mechanisms for openly exchanging non-proprietary information.

By finding balances within these two contradictions, we will get more value from our membership. And by working together and supporting the various LISA initiatives, companies can help their own business and the industry as a whole to grow.

LISA’s role here is primarily to gather and disseminate information, in order to promote a better understanding of why localization is important to today's global marketplace. In the very near future we shall be contacting you individually to announce a number of concrete initiatives designed to achieve these aims. We would like to appeal to you all now to support and provide input for these measures, which are designed for the benefit of us all.